Memories of the Dominican Republic’s countryside, where he was born, fuel the large-scale Caribbean portraits of artist Bony Ramirez. He incorporates all kinds of materials into his works – wallpaper, swords, rhinestones – to bring depth to the stories he tells about Caribbean history and daily life.

Ramirez creates his large, stylized, distorted figures on paper, then puts them onto wood panels featuring idyllic, colourful backdrops of Caribbean imagery. The works are done in oil stick, paint, and coloured pencil.

Ramirez says his art is “heavily influenced by Mannerist and Renaissance portraiture as seen through the presence of still lives, solid colored backgrounds, and romanticized gore.”

Ramirez uses a variety of objects which either complement the playfulness and idyllicism of his work, such as colourful beads, or contrast it by penetrating it with violence, such as real knives stabbed into the canvas.

-Bradley Ertaskiran, the Montreal gallery that represents him

Bony Ramirez website, here.

His artist statement, here

His Instagram, here

Bradley Artaskiran gallery, here.